Post by BossMan on Apr 16, 2020 21:56:31 GMT
ELMET AND ROTHWELL
Elmet and Rothwell is a relatively new constituency located to the east of Leeds, having been created for the 2010 general election. It was created out of the two former Elmet and Morley & Rothwell constituencies. Elmet lost Whinmoor and gained approximately 15,000 voters from Rothwell, located in the south east of the borough of Leeds – leading to the change of name.
The old seat of Elmet was itself created only relatively recently, in 1983. The name will be unfamiliar to many – it was the name of the last, ancient Celtic kingdom of England, but its exact boundaries are undefined and may not even be entirely within this constituency’s borders. Elmet was a marginal seat, held by the Conservative MP Spencer Batiste until 1997, when he was defeated by Labour’s Colin Burgon, who held the seat until he retired in 2010.
The Conservative candidate Alec Shelbrooke won the newly drawn seat in 2010 by 4,521 votes. As with many first time Tory incumbents, he increased his majority in 2015 - to 8,490.
Elmet and Rothwell was estimated to have voted 56% in favour of leaving the European Union at the 2016 referendum, and this was borne out when the Tory majority increased again against the tide in 2017, to 9,805. This ballooned to a record 17,353 in 2019, after two and a half years of parliamentary stalemate in which the probability of Brexit being delivered had been put in doubt, and voters of this seat turned away from the Labour Party of Jeremy Corbyn in large numbers.
However, local election results continue to give the impression that Elmet and Rothwell still has all the makings of a classical marginal seat.
Only Rothwell has shown itself as a competitive ward for the major parties in recent years, between Labour and the Liberal Democrats. The other wards have been generally been much more loyal to its respective parties. Labour’s best ward is Kippax and Methley, rooted in a coal mining tradition. Garforth and Swillington is a mixed ward between its working class southern end of Garforth and the new estates in its northern parts, but it has usually ended up in the Labour column (last electing a Tory in the all out elections of 2004) until recent battles with a very competitive Independent group within the ward.
In the north east of the constituency - and the county - are two of the most strongly Tory wards in West Yorkshire, Harewood (home to Harewood House) and Wetherby (which returned Conservatives even through their nadir in the mid-1990s). They combine the traditional market town and villages and modern private housing estates such as Linton, popular with affluent commuters including Leeds United footballers.
The Conservatives secured more than double the number of votes than that of Labour in 2019. As with a great number of constituencies in northern England, it remains to be seen whether this was an aberrant consequence of the battle for Brexit and Labour’s left wing leadership, or whether it signifies a more permanent shift in voting behaviour.
Elmet and Rothwell is a relatively new constituency located to the east of Leeds, having been created for the 2010 general election. It was created out of the two former Elmet and Morley & Rothwell constituencies. Elmet lost Whinmoor and gained approximately 15,000 voters from Rothwell, located in the south east of the borough of Leeds – leading to the change of name.
The old seat of Elmet was itself created only relatively recently, in 1983. The name will be unfamiliar to many – it was the name of the last, ancient Celtic kingdom of England, but its exact boundaries are undefined and may not even be entirely within this constituency’s borders. Elmet was a marginal seat, held by the Conservative MP Spencer Batiste until 1997, when he was defeated by Labour’s Colin Burgon, who held the seat until he retired in 2010.
The Conservative candidate Alec Shelbrooke won the newly drawn seat in 2010 by 4,521 votes. As with many first time Tory incumbents, he increased his majority in 2015 - to 8,490.
Elmet and Rothwell was estimated to have voted 56% in favour of leaving the European Union at the 2016 referendum, and this was borne out when the Tory majority increased again against the tide in 2017, to 9,805. This ballooned to a record 17,353 in 2019, after two and a half years of parliamentary stalemate in which the probability of Brexit being delivered had been put in doubt, and voters of this seat turned away from the Labour Party of Jeremy Corbyn in large numbers.
However, local election results continue to give the impression that Elmet and Rothwell still has all the makings of a classical marginal seat.
Only Rothwell has shown itself as a competitive ward for the major parties in recent years, between Labour and the Liberal Democrats. The other wards have been generally been much more loyal to its respective parties. Labour’s best ward is Kippax and Methley, rooted in a coal mining tradition. Garforth and Swillington is a mixed ward between its working class southern end of Garforth and the new estates in its northern parts, but it has usually ended up in the Labour column (last electing a Tory in the all out elections of 2004) until recent battles with a very competitive Independent group within the ward.
In the north east of the constituency - and the county - are two of the most strongly Tory wards in West Yorkshire, Harewood (home to Harewood House) and Wetherby (which returned Conservatives even through their nadir in the mid-1990s). They combine the traditional market town and villages and modern private housing estates such as Linton, popular with affluent commuters including Leeds United footballers.
The Conservatives secured more than double the number of votes than that of Labour in 2019. As with a great number of constituencies in northern England, it remains to be seen whether this was an aberrant consequence of the battle for Brexit and Labour’s left wing leadership, or whether it signifies a more permanent shift in voting behaviour.
